Berlin disco terror trial nears end

American authorities, too, were vaguely aware of an impending attack. According to East German Foreign Ministry files, days before the La Belle bomb went off, the US government informed East German authorities of its concerns about a brewing Libyan conspiracy, but the authorities took no action. On the night of the attack, the US commander in Berlin had ordered that American servicemen be cleared from places where they usually congregated, Mehlis says, adding that military police were on their way to the La Belle disco when the bomb went off.

Today, even after the testimony of more than a dozen Stasi agents, exactly who knew how much is still unclear.

After a secret meeting on Malta in 1996 with Musbah Abulghasem Eter, a former employee at the Libyan embassy in East Berlin, Mehlis concluded that Chanaa was not just a witness, but a suspect. Chanaa's former wife, Verena, also appeared to be implicated in the plot as the person who planted the bomb in the disco. Later, Mr. Eter himself became a suspect.

Lebanese authorities arrested a fourth suspect, Yasser Chraidi, who held a Libyan passport, on unrelated charges and extradited him to Germany in 1996. International arrest warrants for four more Libyans are still outstanding.

Jürgen Lischewski, the defense attorney representing Eter, says that the prosecution hasn't gotten anywhere close to the bottom of the case. "The question of the perpetrator behind the perpetrator has been left completely unanswered," Mr. Lischewski says. "What was discussed in this trial is only the small glow of a small candle."

Lawyers representing the defendants and the victims are both angry that the German government has prevented Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's top foreign policy adviser, Michael Steiner, and Berlin's former ambassador to Washington, Jürgen Chrobog, from testifying in court.

In a diplomatic cable this spring, Ambassador Chrobog reportedly wrote that in March Mr. Steiner told US officials, including President Bush, that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had personally confessed to involvement in the La Belle bombing. The embarrassing leak has since disappeared from the headlines.

For the bombing's victims, a clear link to the oil-rich Libyan regime could provide the basis for a compensation claim. Advocates for the victims criticize the lack of German government support after the attack.

"The victims were left to fend for themselves," says attorney Stephan Maigné. "They all should have had some sort of psychological counseling to overcome their experiences."

Instead, says Brunhild Freiwald, who lost her unborn child as a result of the bombing, the extent of state support she received was $250 for clothes damaged in the attack. Ms. Freiwald says that only since she testified in court did she begin confronting long-repressed feelings. "I can't imagine that any of the victims lived their lives normally afterwards," she says.

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